


THE Woman

by Ysabetwordsmith



Category: Schrodinger's Heroes, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Asexual Character, Asexual Sherlock, Asexuality, Drunk Morgan, Drunk Sherlock, Drunkenness, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Humor, Making Friends, Male Friendship, Storytelling, Team as Family, Unconventional Families, flangst, help that is helpful rather than smothering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan sneaks away from the rest of Schrodinger's Heroes. Sherlock sneaks away from John. Their paths cross in the same bar -- and they discover that they're both there to drown very similar memories of the same person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Long Way from Home

**Author's Note:**

> This story fills another square on [my card](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/4580214.html) for the fest. It's the first crossover that I've done for the card.
> 
> The following story belongs to _[Schrodinger's Heroes,](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/tag/schrodinger's+heroes)_ featuring an apocryphal television show supported by an imaginary fandom. It's science fiction about quantum physics and saving the world from alternate dimensions. It features a very mixed cast in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. This project developed with input from multiple people, and it's open for everyone to play in. You can read more about the background, the characters, and a bunch of assorted content on the [menu page](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/1752525.html).
> 
> This is the first story in the _Herolock_ series.

Morgan leaned against the bar and collected his piña colada. It had taken long enough to arrive, the Texan bartender not eager to serve someone who looked Japanese. Morgan took a sip, then sighed. "That's more like it," he said.

"I can't imagine it's anything like what you're used to," the fellow next to him said in a crisp British accent.

Morgan glanced over at him. Tall, pale, topped with a mess of dark curls and arresting silver-blue eyes. "What makes you say that?"

"Judging from the state of your shirt, you're a long way from home," the stranger said.

Morgan laughed. "You really have no idea, _brah,"_ he said, shaking his head. 

The elegant eyebrows pinched together. "I merely meant, it is a long way from Hawaii to Texas, and this bar makes ghastly piña coladas. The coconut isn't fresh and the pineapple juice comes from a _can."_

Morgan's laughter scaled up, and up, until he couldn't breathe and subsided into rhythmic wheezes.

"You're obviously not here for the quality of the beverages," the man said. "Aside from slipping away from your rocket scientist friends --"

"They're not rocket scientists," Morgan interrupted. "They are quantum mechanics."

"There's always _something,"_ the stranger said, his eyes alight with renewed interest. "So why _are_ you here?"

"Oh, the usual," Morgan said. "Because of a woman." He drained the rest of his awful piña colada. Surely one of the other cocktails must be better. He would just have to sample them and find out. "Because of ... THE woman, really."

"Fancy that," the man said. "So am I." He held out a long, delicate hand. "My name is Sherlock, and I should very much like to buy you a drink."

It was a programmer's hand, Morgan thought as he shook it, reminded of Alex and Ash. "I'm Morgan, and I'll gladly take you up on that. Now, talk story."

* * *

"You went to Buckingham Palace naked?" Morgan said, laughing so hard that he spilled his Mai Tai. He liked this British _lolo_.

"Under a bedsheet," Sherlock corrected meticulously. His fingers twirled a half-full glass of red wine.

"You went to Buckingham Palace," Morgan said, _"naked."_

"Yes," said Sherlock. They grinned at each other.

* * *

"She rubbed herself on your _telescope?"_ Sherlock said, horrified. He had switched from wine to cocktails, something colorful and sharp that Morgan didn't recognize. It seemed to suit his general air of debauched genius.

"All over it," Morgan said, his voice glum. "I used a whole bottle of lens cleaner, but you know, that smell?" He shook his head. "I couldn't go in there anymore without smelling her."

"I understand," Sherlock said, folding his hand over Morgan's. "The woman diddled with my microscope once."

Morgan scowled. "She is a menace. Irresistible, but a menace."

* * *

"So there we were in her parlor, guns pointed at all of us, and this prat yelling at me to open the safe --"

"You're pretty quick, _akamai,_ you must've figured out the combination by then," Morgan said.

"Her measurements," Sherlock said.

"This one time, she locked me out of my own laptop by changing the password to her IQ number and Myers-Briggs letters," Morgan admitted.

"Not a bit vain, is she then?" Sherlock said dryly.

* * *

"So what did she have on you?" Sherlock asked.

"Bitch stole my asteroid," Morgan sulked into his mango daiquiri. "She copied the streak plates onto her phone, then wiped the _whole night's data_ from Mauna Kea Observatories. Blamed it on me, ruined my career."

"Ah yes, the invincible phone," Sherlock said.

Morgan snarled. "Not so invincible once Ash got ahold of it," he said. "But it took Midge a week to find the woman and pickpocket the phone, so the fact that Ash hacked it in half an hour didn't help. Some barney in Oklahoma already claimed my asteroid as his and named it after his _dog."_

"Half an hour?" Sherlock said. "You really must introduce me to this Ash of yours."


	2. Best Friend, Only Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan and Sherlock exchange more stories about their wretched encounters with THE woman.

"The woman kidnapped John once," Sherlock said. "Not something I usually forgive."

"Who's John?" Morgan asked.

"My flatmate. Best friend. _Only_ friend, really," Sherlock said. "Or he was. I loved the way he would always _listen_ to me. I'm still disappointed that he got himself kidnapped by a woman, even THE woman."

"How'd she manage that?" Morgan said.

"Sent an unmarked car for him, and he just got in like the _imbecile_ he is," Sherlock said. "Mycroft is always doing that to John, and it gives John bad habits." His mouth twisted. "My brother gives _everyone_ bad habits."

"Unmarked cars always mean trouble," Morgan agreed.

* * *

"Alex has this ... superconducting supercollider," Morgan enunciated carefully. "Teflon Tesseract. Tef. So when _her_ Morgan died -- also a woman, by the way --"

"Isn't it always," Sherlock said, listing to the side. "What's this Tef do? Does it explode? I like explosions."

"Not usually," Morgan said. "It moves things, people, from one dimension to another. I wasn't here when it started, that was core!Morgan herself. Some guys came through chasing a fugitive supervillain, ran off into the desert, never heard from 'em again. Freaky shit."

"No wonder Moriarty seemed to come out of nowhere," Sherlock muttered. "He actually _did."_

* * *

"An' she ... an' she faked her death. _Twice,"_ Sherlock said. "Second time I helped, though. Gave me ideas I should ... _not_ ... have ushed. _Used."_

"That shounds bad," Morgan said.

"I doubt John will ever forgive me," said Sherlock.

"For cheating on him with a woman? THE woman?" Morgan said. "If he's met her, he'll forgive you."

"For faking my death," Sherlock said softly.

"Oh. Yeah. You might have a real problem there," Morgan said. Then he shook his head. "Nah, if he loves you, he won't leave you. Way you talk story, John loves you. You're _'ohana,_ yeah? He'll track you down once he gets over it, just so he can give you stinkeye for scaring him out of his wits."

Sherlock poked a long, thin straw at the seven colorful bands of liquid in his current drink. "It's the alcohol content," he said thoughtfully. 

"No, it's the _specific gravity,"_ Morgan said, sipping at his own Nuclear Rainbow. "Some of those laysh ... _layers_ are mixed, not right from the bottle. Sugar and fruit juice and stuff. An' den it's _surface tension,_ you saw him pouring over the spoon."

Sherlock brightened. "You _unnerstand_ me," he said. "I think I love you."

* * *

Sherlock's lanky frame had gradually slumped onto the bar. Now he lay with one cheek pressed against the smooth wood, surrounded by the remnants of his last drink. "S'your turn," he said.

"Thash it, really. Sh'dumped me," Morgan said. He placed one finger carefully on a melting ice cube and skated it across the bar. "Then Alex came an' shaid, their Morgan got killed in a car axe--axe--uh, wreck. I w'sho broken up, I lef' my home dimension."

"You win," Sherlock mumbled into a puddle of scotch.


	3. Aloha, Handsome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John tracks down Sherlock in a seedy bar. Sherlock still has company.

John finally tracked down Sherlock in a seedy bar on the outskirts of Waxahachie. The place was crowded with beefy men who eyed John suspiciously as he slipped inside. He found the detective's tall form sprawled, snoring, over the scarred wooden bar. 

"You couldn't have cut him off before he passed out?" John snapped at the bartender.

"Jeeves, this is Texas," the bartender drawled. "I cut off the booze, somebody's liable to cut off my fingers."

"Bloody colonials," John said, turning his attention to Sherlock. He grabbed a handful of napkins and mopped up the spilled liquor so Sherlock couldn't inhale it if he shifted wrong. "I swear to God, Sherlock, if you ever give me the slip again, I will lock a radio collar around your scrawny neck," he grumbled. He tucked two fingers under Sherlock's chin and was somewhat reassured by the strong pulse. Probably no alcohol poisoning this time. John had found Sherlock in worse shape, some of the times he took off like this.

"Well _aloha,_ handsome," a blurry voice declared as a weight landed on his shoulders. "You mush be John."

John found himself half-covered in friendly stranger. The man had something like Sherlock's long, angular beauty but the raven hair was straight as a fall of silk and the tilted eyes were a warm brown against golden skin with a hint of copper. He wore a loud Hawaiian shirt with the top button missing and fraying threads at the ends of the sleeves. "Excuse me, do I know you?" John asked politely.

"I tol' you he wouldn' leave you," the man said, sliding down John to poke Sherlock. "Wake up, you _lolo,_ John's here."

Sherlock stirred briefly and his pale eyes fluttered open. "John," he murmured. "Love you." Then he fell asleep again.

"He shays that a lot," the man said.

"No," John said faintly, trying to convince his galloping heart to slow down. "He really doesn't." Except that Sherlock just _had,_ which was quite splendid. Then John recognized another problem beyond a drunken Sherlock in an unfamiliar bar: Sherlock's new and equally drunken friend. He could get one drunk safely out of the bar and into a taxi; he couldn't handle two at once.

"Excuse me," John said to the stranger and began searching the other man's pockets. "I just need to peep at your wallet, there's a good lad ..."

"Sherlock," the man said.

"What about him?" John said.

"Sherlock, wallet," the man said.

John rolled his eyes and efficiently frisked Sherlock, turning up both Sherlock's wallet and an unfamiliar one. He flipped open the second. "So this is you," he said. "Morgan, eh? You knew Sherlock lifted your wallet and you _let him keep it?"_

"Din' need it," Morgan said, "he wash buying."

"You're absolutely _barking mad,"_ John said. "I don't know how Sherlock manages to surround himself with lunatics everywhere he goes."

"He'sh brilliant," Morgan said in a confiding tone. "He drawsh people in, like moths 'round a shtreetlight, jusht like Alex." Morgan let go of John and started leaning away.

Quickly John looped an arm around Morgan's waist and pulled him close. "Easy now," he said. "You just stay with me." Anyone capable of recognizing Sherlock's brilliance was _not_ someone he'd allow to fall onto the filthy floor of a Texan bar, barking mad stranger or no. Morgan was warm and pliant in John's grasp, evidently an expert snuggler. He did not protest when John surreptitiously curled a hand around his wrist. His pulse was slow and steady under John's fingertips.

It took some juggling of Morgan and Sherlock for John to fumble his phone out and dial the emergency number he'd found in Morgan's wallet. "Hello, this is Dr. John Watson. I'm calling about your friend Morgan. He's fine, but he's got himself drunk in a bar with my flatmate Sherlock, and I can't carry both of them myself. Could you possibly come over and get Morgan?"

A woman's voice replied, rich with some accent that John didn't recognize. "Yes, of course." John gave her the address of the bar. "Thank you for contacting us, Dr. Watson. My name is Ash, and we'll see you in about fifteen minutes."

She rang off, and John put his phone away. He wanted to keep a hand on his two drunks to make sure neither of them fell off the wobbly barstools. Both of them drifted in and out of hazy awareness. He could cope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **References**
> 
> Morgan uses [Hawaiian slang](http://www.eyeofhawaii.com/Pidgin/pidgin.htm) ...
> 
> _aloha_ \-- in this context, hello; but it also means goodbye and love.
> 
> _lolo_ \-- (noun) nutcase, idiot. (adjective) crazy, wacky.


	4. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John meets some of Morgan's friends.

John used the convenient mirror behind the bar to monitor the doors without getting a cramp in his neck. He saw several people enter together and wondered if one of them might be the Ash he was waiting for.

"Chris!" the bartender yelled. "Come get your freak friends out of my bar."

"Wot? Boddah you?" Morgan snapped at him.

John stiffened, and would have punched the bartender in the face, but for having both arms full of Sherlock and Morgan. A big warm hand closed reassuringly over his shoulder. Not Ash, but probably someone with her.

"Now, Bo, that ain't very friendly," drawled the large blond man. "Be a shame if your bad manners turned out to be catching. I might forget to leave a tip." The hand not on John's shoulder reached to the bar, cupped over a roll of bills.

The bartender scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry, Chris," he said. "I just don't think they'd be too comfortable here. You should take 'em home to sleep it off."

Chris chuckled. "Oh, they look _mighty_ comfortable to me," he said, looking at Morgan draped over John and the bar. Still, Chris lifted his hand and let Bo sweep the money away. "Come on, Morgan, let's get you out of here. You look like you've drunk enough to drown a fish." Chris bent down to drape Morgan's arm over his shoulder and then carefully stood up.

"He's not in any danger, I think," John murmured to Chris as he helped hoist Morgan into an upright position. "Just drowsy. Get some water into him if you can."

Chris swept an appraising gaze over John, who stirred in his place. There was something a little more alert to this man than the cowboy boots and hat would suggest. John had got suspicious of people who could _see_ that well. Then there was the "Elemental BeEr" t-shirt over the faded jeans, far too sophisticated for the kind of bloke who casually bribed a bartender not to make a scene. It didn't add up, and that made John nervous. 

But Chris just let him go with a pat on the shoulder and said, "We 'preciate the help, doc." Then Chris turned his attention to Morgan.

A muscled black man came over to support the other side of Morgan. "Hi, I'm Pat, and this is Chris," he said to John. "Thanks for taking care of Morgan until we got here."

"John Watson, and I'm glad I could help," John said sincerely. There was just something cozy about Pat, something that made John think of kitchens and gingerbread and the fireplace back in his old flat on Baker Street. Pat wore a t-shirt the same milk chocolate color as his skin, which in fact had a chocolate molecule printed on the front in shiny gold foil. He showed no strain at all as he and Chris more-or-less carried Morgan out of the bar.

The woman with them looked sturdy and competent, with deep copper skin and straight black hair in a long braid. Her t-shirt read "There's no place like 127.0.0.1." John was sensing a theme here.

"Nice to meet you in person, John. I'm Ash," she said. "Need a hand with your friend there?" 

John opened his mouth to say "colleague" as usual, and what fell out was, "Yes, please, if it's no bother."

"None at all," she said easily, moving around to take hold of Sherlock.

Unfamiliar hands woke him _right_ up. Sherlock raked his silver gaze over the stranger and then, to John's amazement, smiled at her. "Sho you're Ash," Sherlock mumbled sunnily. "I wanna fuck your head."

"Just ignore him, he says _bloody daft_ things when he's drunk," John said to Ash. "Sherlock doesn't really want to fuck anyone."

Ash gave him a serene smile. "I understand. It'll be nice to play with another ace in the deck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **References**
> 
> Morgan uses [Hawaiian slang](http://www.eyeofhawaii.com/Pidgin/pidgin.htm) ...
> 
> Wot? Boddah you? -- What? Does this bother you? ... or more colloquially, You wanna make something of it?


	5. Welcome to Texas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash helps John wrangle Sherlock.

John blinked at her, and almost missed his cue to lift Sherlock off the barstool. They stumbled a bit and then found their balance. John wasn't used to people being this ... just _this_. They were smart, they were tolerant, and they were taking in stride things that half of London had balked over or simply misinterpreted. "Right," John said, and then, "Oh, bollocks, I forgot to call us a taxi."

Ash led them outside to a minivan. "Don't worry about it," she said. "We'll gladly drop you off wherever you're staying."

"I've no idea, actually," John admitted. "Sherlock may have booked a room, but ..." Sherlock was drooling on John's shirt, plainly in no condition to divulge the location of whatever lodging he may or may not have acquired.

"You two can spend the night with us, then," Ash invited. "We have plenty of spare room."

John nodded, grateful for the solution. "That'll do, thanks," he said. Ahead of them, Chris and Pat carefully folded Morgan into the minivan. John eyed the seat behind, trying to figure out the best way of getting Sherlock into it. 

"You climb in first, then I'll hand Sherlock up to you," Ash suggested.

So John climbed in, and together they lifted Sherlock into the seat. Ash gently tucked the long legs in next to John and fastened the seatbelt over Sherlock, before hopping in herself. John narrowed his eyes at her. "You've done this before," he observed. "Morgan get drunk often?"

"Once in a while, on a bad day," Ash said. "I grew up on a reservation. You do the math."

Well. He'd heard stories, anyway. He wasn't going to go into that, with Sherlock falling asleep on him and Ash watching them both. But Ash was moving right along with observations of her own.

"So you were a combat medic, huh? We don't see many of those. Kay will be thrilled to meet you," she said. The motor rumbled, and the minivan rolled out of the parking lot.

"Now how in the world did you know that?" John asked. If there was another consulting detective in the world, Sherlock would be outraged. 

Ash just shrugged. "I saw you scanning the doors in the bar, that pattern says military; but your reflexes aren't hair-trigger anymore, so ex-military," she said. Her gaze flicked down to John's lap. "Then you gave your title when you called, and also you haven't taken your hand off your friend's pulse point since we got here. You're used to monitoring people in the field like a medic does."

John dropped his gaze, and yes, he did have his fingers wrapped around Sherlock's wrist. He couldn't even recall when he'd done that, but the metronome held steady in his memory, so he'd been doing it a while. "That's brilliant," he said, because it was, and because he _missed_ it. He and Sherlock have been going through a rough patch off and on ever since they left England, ever since Reichenbach really. Yet here were several people who, whether or not they turned out to share Sherlock's supreme intellect, at least saw what they were looking at.

"So what brings you out here?" Ash asked.

John kept his gaze on Sherlock's hand, limp and trusting under his fingers. "Him," John said.

"In that case, welcome to Texas, watch _his_ step," Ash said. At that moment, the minivan hit a pothole. Ash and John braced Sherlock between them to keep him from bouncing around, Ash with a hand on his knees and John cradling Sherlock's head against his own shoulder. Sherlock didn't even wake up this time, which told John that the highly reliable computer between Sherlock's ears had rated Ash as _safe_. In the seat ahead of them, Chris murmured that Morgan was fine but admonished Pat to avoid more potholes.

"I think," John said, "that Sherlock has managed to stumble into just the right place after all."

 

~ CASE CLOSED ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are sequels in the _Herolock_ series:  
>  "Texas Sunrise" [Part 1](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6849729.html), [Part 2](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6850829.html), [Part 3](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6851626.html), [Part 4](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6852250.html), [Part 5](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6852727.html)   
> "Seeing Things" [Part 1](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6853387.html), [Part 2](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6854428.html), [Part 3](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6855619.html), [Part 4](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6856286.html), [Part 5](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6857683.html), [Part 6](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6858579.html)   
> "Fighting Through the Fog" [Part 1](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6871443.html), [Part 2](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6871896.html), [Part 3](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6872677.html), [Part 4](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9022731.html)   
> "[Still Alive](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/4707527.html)"   
> "Updating the Database" [Part 1](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9023862.html), [Part 2](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9024822.html)   
> "[Studying Scarlett](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9025525.html)"   
> "[The Waxahachie Tea Party](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9026213.html)"   
> "Smoke and Thunder" [Part 1](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9027080.html), [Part 2](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9029029.html)   
> "Unbridled Scold" [Part 1](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9072571.html), [Part 2](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9073295.html)   
> "[Observation, Deduction](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9188626.html)"  
> "[Kitchen Courtesies](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9183717.html)"  
> "[Pi Fight](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9191989.html)"

**Author's Note:**

> **References**
> 
>  
> 
> Morgan uses [Hawaiian slang](http://www.eyeofhawaii.com/Pidgin/pidgin.htm) ...
> 
>  _akamai_ \-- (noun) genius, expert; (adjective) smart, sharp, intelligent.
> 
> barney -- amateur, newbie.
> 
>  _brah_ \-- brother, dude, man.
> 
>  _lolo_ \-- (noun) nutcase, idiot. (adjective) crazy, wacky.
> 
> talk story -- converse, share news; in this context, "tell me your story.


End file.
